The Story of Learning-Healing Institute
The Hickmans--Shawn and Holly are the Co-founders and visionaries, utilizing their combined respective experiences to establish Learning-Healing Institute, Inc, that with ONE unifying purpose—to restore and enhance male youth (13-17 years of age) with redirection in an alternative residential educational facility.
The LHI residential educational facility is designed within the framework of educational psychology, re-entry and redemption, business acumen and educational leadership theories, and so much more!!!! It is created to conduct a whole child approach in restorative justice, social and civic-mindedness, community and home leadership, as well as spiritual, academic, social progress and public presentation and youth advocacy.
Another component of LHI is the mentoring group developed to serve 18-25 year old young men as a dedication to their late son, Shawn Hickman, Jr. The mentoring group is designed to redevelop, provide emotional safe space where young men find VALUE IN HIS NARRATIVE, and to affirm experiences to create change agents—wholesome, productive, respectful and positive men in and of their community.
Shawn Hickman, Sr. is a product of public schools in Baltimore, MD, and college experience in Accounting, Mathematics, and Finance, while Holly Fisher-Hickman holds an advanced degree in leadership in educational administration with other degrees in History and Public History, respectively. They are both committed, consecrated, and creatively working with young people—in all aspects of their life, together.
The Hickmans—serve as the Chief Executive and Academic Officer and Chief Facilities Officer and co-directors of the business and LHI campus; they are proud parents of one adult daughter and three loving grandsons and a newborn granddaughter.
In Testament and Recognition
A son of Baltimore, Md., a treasure full of promise, and a Man of Valor (from GOD), Shawn L. Hickman, Sr was the Visionary of Learning-Healing Institute, Inc., a school that would be a “redemptive tool” to refashion and remold natural leadership attributes for male youth and returning citizens, whose justice-impacted narrative would have limited destiny. The intentional, deliberate, and alternative educational facility is designed to provide rigorous and meaningful high-quality educational access, to strengthen familial bonds, and recreate communities full of productive men. His vision articulated what he heard my heart spoke about, “Not letting any more young and brilliant young men “fall through the cracks” because he knew the path all too well. He was a man of tragedy and triumph, challenge and success filled with compassion for young men to possess and be shown a different approach to live and thrive.
His articulation of a divinely-inspired vision coupled with a strong desire to make a difference moved him to envision a school that would serve as a “second-chance” holistic investment in young men whose life patterns and decisions resulted in unfavorable consequences, but who had the tenacity and a willingness to transform. He also understood the pressures of how urban environments alter promising young men, and had a willingness, openness, and compassion towards male youth. He was firm and assertive to young men, but also was a father figure and a sagacious counselor to all who crossed his path.
In his quiet, tender, and unshakeable strength, Mr. Hickman recognized that Learning-Healing Institute, Inc. (LHI) would entail a memorial component for fallen young men, such as our son, Shawn L. Hickman, Jr, who was on the cusp of life-altering change when their lives were taken. The memoriam of fallen sons whose personal narrative serves both as a preventive methodology and remembrance.
It is in the staunch belief that LHI is the refuge and tool to redeem our young men, that he the Visionary is remembered now and forever—1973-2022.
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